State DEP to sample 300 water utilities for PFAS

Friday

Apr 12, 2019 at 3:28 PMApr 12, 2019 at 3:28 PM

The Pennsylvania DEP says it will begin sampling at least 300 water utilities across the state next month for toxic PFAS chemicals.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection next month will begin sampling more than 300 public water utilities across the state for a class of toxic chemicals that were used in firefighting foams, non-stick cookware, food packaging and other products.

Per- and polyfluroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are well-known in Bucks and Montgomery counties after they were found five years ago in nationally high amounts in communities near the former Naval Air Station-Joint Reserve Base Willow Grove and Naval Air Warfare Center Warminster. The drinking water of at least 70,000 people was found to be impacted, forcing the closure of at least 15 public water wells and 250 private water wells in the area.

But the DEP announced Friday it will expand its sampling to water utilities across the state, searching for chemicals near facilities where they have been used or processed, including industrial sites, factories, military bases, fire training schools, airports, landfills and Superfund sites.

“Addressing PFAS in drinking water is one of the top priorities for DEP,” DEP secretary Patrick McDonnell said in a prepared statement. “This sampling plan will shed light on the extent of PFAS contamination in Pennsylvania.”

The plan is further laid out in a 67-page document released by the department Friday, and the DEP says it also will detail its efforts during a statewide PFAS Action Team meeting scheduled for Abington Senior High School Monday night. The exact number of water systems to be sampled was not immediately clear. The planning document said the state identified 493 water system sources considered to be high risk, and 319 sources identified as control sources due to their location in forested areas away from high-risk sites.

The document did not provide a listing of which systems would be tested. However, a map displaying “identified water source(s) for potential sampling” showed a heavy clustering in the southeast region, outward to Allentown, Reading and Lancaster. A separate table listed 33 wells in Bucks County, 42 wells in Montgomery County, and six water intakes in Montgomery County, but did not list their locations.

The planning document says six PFAS will be sampled for: PFOS, PFOA, PFNA, PFHxS, PFHpA, and PFBS. There are no federal or state regulations for any PFAS, but the Environmental Protection Agency has a health advisory of 70 parts per trillion (ppt) for PFOS and PFOA in drinking water.

The planning document says the DEP has $250,000 in available funding and will contract with an accredited lab to analyze “approximately 400 samples in a first phase." A DEP press release said the first phase will begin in May and last approximately one year. It does not provide any details about what a second phase will entail.

The announcement is the most recent development in a flurry of PFAS activity by the DEP. For several years, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf has been part of a growing chorus of state leaders calling for the EPA to regulate the chemicals. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler visited Philadelphia in February to announce an action plan and his intention to set a formal drinking water limit, but Pennsylvania and others panned the plan as lacking specific commitments and timelines.

The state then announced it would set its own drinking water limit, which the state has not done previously for any chemical. McDonnell touched on the topic in statements Friday.

"DEP is taking unprecedented steps to address PFAS, including beginning the process to set a (drinking water limit) for the first time,” McDonnell said. “DEP will not hesitate to step up when the federal government fails to.”

Tracy Carluccio, deputy director of the environmental nonprofit Delaware Riverkeeper Network, called the program “an important step in getting the information about how many people are potentially affected by PFAS contamination and where the pollution occurs.”

But she noted that her organization first petitioned Pennsylvania to set a drinking water limit for PFOA two years ago, and asked for expediency.

There already has been some testing of PFAS in the state. Between 2013 and 2015, the EPA performed a nationwide sampling of large water utilities across the country for PFAS, which is what found contamination locally in Horsham, Warminster, Warrington and Doylestown. Since that time, additional PFAS contamination sites have been found, including at least 20 now known to the DEP, such as the Harrisburg International Airport.

The chemicals were most recently discovered in high amounts this week in Newberry Township, York County, PennLive reported. The township is located just a few miles from the airport, but the source of its contamination is unknown.

State Rep. Todd Stephens, R-151, of Horsham, has been active on pushing for state PFAS regulations and legislation. Stephens said Friday DEP’s sampling may help identify impacted communities.

“Unfortunately many communities may be ingesting these harmful chemicals and not even know it,” Stephens said.

Experts say PFAS are ubiquitous in the environment because of their extreme durability and widespread use across industries. In 2016 and 2017, numerous Bucks County water utilities not located near known PFAS sources tested their water and regularly found the chemicals in the single digits of parts per trillion, or slightly higher.

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection performed a similar PFAS sampling effort in 2006 and 2010. It found PFOA in about 60 percent of the water supplies it tested, and PFOS in 30 percent, according to a presentation it gave Pennsylvania last year.

The widespread presence of PFAS has led to some concerns among water utilities that a formal drinking water regulation, particularly at lower levels, could prove costly to filter out. But states like New Jersey are moving toward such regulations anyway, with that state’s DEP working toward a 13 ppt standard for PFOS and a 14 ppt standard for PFOA.

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